In ophthalmic surgery, and in neurosurgery, intricate incisions must often be made on tissue surfaces that are not planar, e.g., on spherical surfaces such as the eye. This requires the use of fine, precision blades such as diamond blades that have cutting edges of different designs to attain subtly different incisions. Cutting edges and their resultant incisions are disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,713,915. Scalpel instruments to which such diamond blades are affixed are also known.
Certain scalpels are known in which the blade tip is retractable into the scalpel's distal end for safety reasons; for precision diamond blades, retraction of the blade importantly serves to protect the extremely fragile blade. See U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,342,379 and 5,431,671, wherein the blade is retractable by a spring, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,665,099, wherein the blade is retractable by a vacuum. U.S. Pat. No. 6,884,240 discloses a slidable guard that is movable distally to a locked position to surround and enclose the blade. In U.S. Pat. No. 6,544,277, a scalpel is disclosed wherein a common handle is adapted to receive one of a plurality of blade assemblies disconnectable therefrom, enabling a surgeon to select a blade assembly having the desired blade design. The patent also discloses a plurality of blade cutting edge designs.
It is desired to provide a scalpel assembly wherein a plurality of blade assemblies are each adapted to be easily and quickly connected to and released from a common handle by the surgeon during a procedure, and wherein the blade tip is retractable into the scalpel assembly's distal end by the surgeon when desired.